Posted
by
Soulskillon Wednesday December 05, 2012 @06:32PM
from the free-sandwich-with-every-vote dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The U.S. House of Representatives voted 397-0 today on a resolution to oppose U.N. control of the internet. 'The 397-0 vote is meant to send a signal to countries meeting at a U.N. conference on telecommunications this week. Participants are meeting to update an international telecom treaty, but critics warn that many countries' proposals could allow U.N. regulation of the Internet.' The European Parliament passed a similar resolution a couple weeks ago, and the U.N. telecom chief has gone on record saying that freedom on the internet won't be curbed. However, that wasn't enough for U.S. lawmakers, who were quite proud of themselves for actually getting bipartisan support for the resolution (PDF). Rep Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) said, 'We need to send a strong message to the world that the Internet has thrived under a decentralized, bottom-up, multi-stakeholder governance model.'"

What you really mean is that US politicians unanimously voted that they should have absolute control over enacting draconian restrictions on the global internet, and that those "european commies" should have any say involving red blooded american technologies and interests, and that the rhetoric about bottom up, decentralized administration is merely a red herring to keep those watchdogs distracted while they aid the henhouse.

(Spasm)

Sorry. I don't know what came over me there. Have you seen Aldus Huxley anywhere? I think I need my daily opiate injection...

Indeed. There is nothing to be done about china being stupid with regard to the internet, and that is as it should be. The free internet will just ignore china.

However, any appeals made by OUR congress critters concerning "free, open, decentralized control" is really just doubletalk for "controlled by our hedgemony of media and telecom interests, with no oversight."

Really, "free and decentralized", in regard to the way the internet was concieved, is that there is no distincton between clients and servers, and that ISPs are mere dumb pipes.

Relatively free? Only the US makes money out of the root domain names which is what this fracas is really all about. The US is sending a message to the whole globe "Fuck You" and the globe will send a message back "Fuck You". Basically US control of the root domain names is coming to an end.

Should be politely noted too that the EU also passed something similar, so at very least, you should expand this from a mere American conspiracy to a larger Western attempt at maintaining global hegemony.:P

Conspiracy? I don't think a vote in the House of Reps really counts as a "conspiracy". Nor does it follow that because Europe doesn't want the UN to have control of the internet, the US' reasons for opposing that control aren't based in self-interest.

They've developed a pretty strong allergy to repeating SOPA and PIPA. When they floated a trial balloon a while back to try to add something spooky to the new privacy bill, there was a massive and immediate blowback, and they dropped it like a hot potato. My senator, Senator Leahy, recently sent a letter to the USTR telling them to slow down on TPP and try to make the process more open. Remember Pat Leahy, sponsor of PIPA? A strongly worded letter has no force of law, but it's something he never would have done even a year ago.

We are seeing the beginnings of a new understanding of this issue in Congress. It will be interesting to see what happens in the next couple of years—whether they keep floating trial balloons, or whether they get it that there is now a permanent constituency for internet freedom watching their every move. It will also be interesting to see if we can extend this third rail effect to nearby issues like copyright maximalism and patent maximalism.

Bonus: they didn't actually do anything. This is a "resolution", not a law. It has no effect. It doesn't even give any official directions to the US representative to the ITU, who (duh) had absolutely no intention of voting for any such thing anyway.

Whenever you get universal support for anything in Congress, it's because it isn't anything. Bipartisan support for doing nothing is very popular. So is bipartisan support for empty gestures. Eking out even so much as a bare majority along anything other than party lines, for some measure that actually does something, is a herculean task.

Congressmen/women are just really voting for themselves controlling it rather than the UN. Our congress hasn't show stellar stamina is supporting a free internet at every opportunity. Both sides of the aisle have proposed, supported or voted for something that took control away from individuals at some point.

Two days ago, a submission points out differences in the words and actions of the ITU and its Secretary General (including a plan to try to undercut any opposition via flooding social media) and most who reply are quite skeptical of the ITU.

I agree with you, but like many arguments spanning a wide variety of users, we're not all individually arguing for both things at the same time.

I shudder to think of what would happen to the internet under ITU or UN control. I definitely feel a "grass is greener" vibe, here. I certainly don't want to hop the fence only to see the grass isn't really grass but fields of glowing toxic sludge and no way back.

Tinpot dictatorships hate the Internet for the same reasons global superpowers like the US or Russia hate the UN.

The Internet looks decentralized but in practice it works to extend the economic and cultural hegemony of the incumbent operators; The UN looks decentralized but in practice it's really a mechanism for small countries to enjoin and harry large, powerful ones on an equal footing.

We need to send a strong message to the world that the Internet has thrived under a decentralized, bottom-up, multi-stakeholder governance model

Isnt that what the UN is ?

No. The UN is the centralization of power. Decisions made by the UN are enforced on member nations. The UN is top down. It is staffed by elites selected by the excecutive branchs of nations. It is multi-national but it is not multi-stakeholder. It excludes stakeholders that are not goverments.

It's single-stakeholder in the sense that it's an entirely political body, comprised of governments whose interests probably include tighter control of the Internet. I doubt they'd be any less tyrannical than the US with copyright enforcement, but they'd probably be more tyrannical with unpopular speech such as blasphemy, which is currently quite well protected by the 1st Amendment.

I'd rather see the Internet overseen by a neutral, international, non-profit, non-governmental organization headquartered in S

Correct. It's about setting up a negotiating position externally, and creating and "us vs them" solidarity for the domestic punter, if there's no internal political debate the talking heads are silent on the subject except to state they are in agreement. In practical terms the internet would not exist if nations did not co-operate under some sort of treaty all the other crap is political theater. Such political games ensure that significant changes to the status quo on a global scale take generations to im

Yes this is true, however countries such as Iran, China, etc. shut off entire parts of the internet 'without justification'.

Do you really want to have an internet controlled by entities which care more about power than freedom? I understand you could argue the same about the U.S. however history has proven those arguments to be false.

Do you really want to have an internet controlled by entities which care more about power than freedom? I understand you could argue the same about the U.S. however history has proven those arguments to be false.

No, it hasn't. Remember Kim Dotcom? And please stop with the freedom bullshit. You could argue some countries defend freedom, but the US is not one of them.

An UN-controlled Internet has the advantage of anything proposed by China being opposed by the US, anything proposed by the US being opposed by China. With any luck nobody will be able to do too much damage.

I would like to see ICANN lose control as they've proven utterly untrustworthy, incompetent & are now just money-grubbing in general.Though I wouldn't want the Urinated Nations from seizing control, at least until that term means something. Far better to deal with poisoned DNS entries & hash tables than continue this way. The Internet may have started with the US military as the 'wild west', but it's now gone backwards to being a po

Right now its a comparative exercise. If every country does the same thing uniformly because its all under one umbrella, then there is no longer anything to compare it to other than "the good old days."

The "good old days" when there were no property rights and you got what you wanted by bashing whoever had it, those "good old days"? The internet (indeed civilization)cannot exist without some level of cooperation, nor is it healthy in the long run to put global infrastructure under the control of any single government. If you want to reduce the influence of regimes such as N. Korea simply bribe them to cooperate on global infrastructure then use it against them. You can't have a planet that generally adhears to democratic principles if you simply dismiss over a billion people out of hand because their government is a bit dodgy.

Ugh. Giving those countries a legitimate pulpit to shout for additional repressive controls that would only exist in addition to existing international law is not going to make things better than they are today. It's the ticket to more government tampering, regulation, and censorship, not less.

In the future, if you find yourself at complete odds with Vint Cerf on subjects of Internet governance, stop and rethink your position for a minute. Well, unless you're in Iran and someone will stone you for it.

The incident with Kim Dotcom can happen regardless of who ICANN/IANA answer to, UN or otherwise. It mainly happened due to treaty and trade agreements as well as strong arm tactics that preceded the internet, and don't require its existence to work.

Other countries seize domain names as well, not just the US. He had a.com TLD, the US government controls those. The US can seize those just as any other country can seize its own TLD registrations, again regardless of who controls ICANN. Notice how thepiratebay.org moved to.se. The US doesn't have any authority to seize those.

As for his physical equipment and the police raids, those happened through diplomatic arrangements and agreements, not through the authority of ICANN or any domain registration authority.

Do you really want to have an internet controlled by entities which care more about power than freedom?

Putting this stuff under the UN is no more about giving China control than it is about giving the US control. China is part of the internet, what they do with their national network is ultimately their own business, what they or anyone else do to a global communications network is everyone's business, sattelites will always ensure no national blackout is ever 100% effective.

I understand you could argue the same about the U.S. however history has proven those arguments to be false.

Yes, however sInce WW2 most of the good deeds that the US lays is rightly proud of were achived through international cooperation and l

Just to clarify. I'm not saying I support any control or plans by the UN (That would probably just legitimize censorship). Just pointing out how the freedom works only when we don't move and notice the shackles.

So you are saying that because it's not perfect under the current system, it couldn't get worse? The US at least trys/pretends to respect free speech, human rights, rule of law, etc. Some of these countries don't even bother to do that.

I think there are a lot of reasons why "the U.S." opposes it; the one you gave is certainly an example. I'm sure that numerous congresscritters voted against it for just the reason you've stated. I'm sure others voted against it for other reasons.

One good reason? The ITU's *first* document out of the current meeting—the one they considered *most* important—was a HOWTO on deep packet inspection for repressive and privacy-violating governments. I'm bracing myself for the encore...

Check out the ITU's plan [boingboing.net] for a unified deep packet inspection standard. This should convince anyone that the ITU is the last group that should get their hands on the control of the Internet.

Your thesis is irrelevant. Do you think it would get better if China, Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia were given a hand in the matter?

And I must also point out that this is part of the irritating "I have absolutely no idea what so ever how good I have it in the US and how bad it is in a lot of other places, but I'm going to point out every failure of the US as proof of how horrible it is" horse-shit that gets pureed into a fine mist and coats everything in these kinds of threads. That attitude is what make

I do not want an Internet controlled by anyone with a history of repressing freedom of speech. Sure you can make an argument that the US has restricted Free speech in the past. I can make a much MUCH stronger argument that places like China, or most Muslim countries should not be allowed a say in what goes on.

You give those guys control, and half the Internet would be gone. So my answer is "No" and if you do not like it, feel free to create your own Internet. It is our ball, and as far as I am concerne

The UN didn't develop the internet, the United States of America's DARPA, research colleges, and major corporations did. The UN doesn't support the vast majority of research and development of future technologies aimed at bettering the internet. Like it or not, the United States of America is one of, if not the most, open societies in the world. Few if any other nations protect free speech to the degree that we do. The internet is open and generally unregulated and that is the way it should, has to, sta

The World Wide Web, which is what was created at CERN, is only governed inasmuch as it is part of the Internet, and while the Internet wouldn't be the same without it, the Internet could exist without it. If the point of mentioning CERN was to imply that the UN has demonstrated it can handle governing the Internet, I'd suggest that it does no such thing, since there's a vast difference between developing a technology (the Web) for a platform that is entirely out of your control (the Internet) and actually governing that platform. It'd be like saying that Zynga (maker of Farmville) is qualified to take over Facebook or Rovio (maker of Angry Birds) is qualified to take over Android and iOS.

Or, to shoehorn in a car analogy and look at a different aspect of this, suggesting that CERN is responsible for developing the Internet would be roughly equivalent to suggesting that Ford was responsible for inventing the vehicle. What he actually did was popularize one particular form of transportation by making it more accessible to the masses, which is quite similar to what we saw take place with the Web (kinda...if you squint and tilt your head...I said I was shoehorning this in, so give me some leeway). But just as vehicles predated Ford's cars and come in a wider variety than what he made (e.g. planes, trains, and automobiles), so too did the Internet predate the Web and encompass much more. And it's what's at stake here.

you do realize most muslim countries want an internet law that says if you blaspheme against their god they can cross country borders for punishment right?

Russia and china would both agree to such a thing and the majority would overall anyone else.

Think about it while the USA is horrible they are a million times better okay maybe just a hundred. times better than everyone else. Very few countries uphold things like hate speech as freedom of expression. Most readily change what that hate speech is. If we

The UN has gotten a really bad reputation lately due to the pandering to groups that outright hate the United States. However, the US is called upon to be the world's police force, ambulance, piggy bank, and shoulder to cry on; but the US is denied the ability to have an appropriate role in the UN in exchange for these services. Instead, we have China and the Sudan on the human rights counsel, we hear about considerable corruption and abuses of UN power. The US brings these injustices up, all of a sudden

The UN has gotten a really bad reputation lately due to the pandering to groups that outright hate the United States.

Say the UN didn't let Chavez to stand up and and insult the US for a few minutes, would that make him a nice guy? Probably not, more likely he'll just become more isolated, and a bunch of Americans will forget that there's countries like his that really don't like the US. Think of the UN General Assembly as the worlds cafeteria, there's a lot of nonsense going on (like the human rights council), but it gives you a decent overview of how everyone gets along and what they're thinking.

However, the US is called upon to be the world's police force, ambulance, piggy bank, and shoulder to cry on; but the US is denied the ability to have an appropriate role in the UN in exchange for these services.

Well no one actually asked the US to be the world's police force, you just sort of... volunteered. BTW, what would you consider an appropriate role? You already have a seat on the security council and an absurd amount of influence.

Never mind that without the US, the UN would have no teeth to accomplish anything. This is not to belittle the good things the UN HAS accomplished - but the United States does get tired of being treated like the scapegoat for all the world's problems.

So here's the deal with the US military. It's really, really, big (about half the world's total budget). It's not really required for UN peacekeeping, other western nations have strong militaries, but the US has such a big military they might as well use it.

Now you'll make the argument that we should all be thankful that the US spends so much to keep the rest of the civilized world safe and let us spend less on our own militaries, and that might have been true at the height of the cold war, but not so much anymore.

You don't spend so much on your military to protect us, you do it so you can exercise your power unilaterally. So you can invade Afghanistan in response to 9/11 and everyone jumps on board. So you can invade Iraq and even though everyone else knows it's a bad idea and we don't want it to happen, we can't really stop it (how many other nations could pull that off?).

We'd actually prefer you cut your military budget a bunch, let us pick up the slack if there was any, and you cab think a little longer before going to war.

Ah yes, China and Sudan are bad but US allies like Saudi Arabia or Pakistan would be so much better! Not trying to be advocate for the former two countries, but saying UN is unjust because it tolerates human rights violation is kinda hypocrisy.

All four are bad. Try taking a laptop to China and you'll learn what both censorship and government spying really mean.

On the other hand, it might be the beginning of problems for people who show disrespect to religion. There are some really poorly reasoned attitudes and legislation towards free speech outside the USA. I'm not saying we're perfect, but we are better, at least in that regard.

Instead it will likely also enable the Chinese Ministry of State Security and other such organizations to seize domains and information on users as well. Things would not improve but instead take a sudden nose dive into oppression.

The P5 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council) each have veto power in the U.N. Security Council, but not elsewhere. Witness the recent recognition of the Palestinian Authority as a non-voting member nation.

It's a completely american product. The US Department of Commerce controlled it almost completely until 1998, when it turned over most routine administrative tasks to a non-profit organization, ICANN. The DoC still maintains administrative oversight and control of the root name servers.